Birds South East Number 69 April 2014 Early birds arriving at the Valley Lakes Wildlife Park in Mt Gambier for a guided tour Long-billed Corella Spotted Pardalote Guided bird tour at Common Blackbird Striated Thornbill Valley Lakes - Wildlife Eastern Yellow Robin Laughing Kookaburra White-naped Honeyeater European Goldfinch Park, Mt Gambier Grey Currawong Magpie-lark Eurasian Coot Red Wattlebird A group of 28 people recently attended the first European Greenfinch Crested Shrike-tit “Valley Lake Wildlife Park guided walk”, on the 23rd of February, a free event run by members of Hoary-headed Grebe BirdLife South East SA, with 31 species of birds By Bob Green identified. Some of the birds were more difficult to spot but were identified by call and the calls pointed out to Contents those present. Some of the highlights were species 1. Valley Lakes guided bird tour like Crested Shrike-tit and Spotted Pardalote, also seeing Dusky Moorhens leading their young around 2. Australsian Ornitholopgical Conference, NZ the water’s edge. 3. Rainbow Report More walks of this type will be run in the future so 3. Bird response to hot weather keep your eyes open for advertised dates if you are interested. 4. Wader Notes Some of the birds seen or heard included: 5. The Bluff AGM and Banded bird search Musk Duck Willie Wagtail 6. Nature’s Notes Dusky Moorhen Australian Wood Duck 8-12. Calendar of Events/Contacts/Sightings Birds South East DECEMBER 2013 AUCKLAND Wrybill, NZ Dotterel, Sharpies, Pectoral and Curlew Sandpipers. We also managed to get 10 colour AUSTRALASIAN ORNITHOLOGICAL flagged or banded godwits which we reported at the CONFERENCE centre. One of the people at the centre was glad we had I was fortunate to be able to attend the seventh seen the Pectoral Sandpiper as she had found one Australasian Ornithological Conference (AOC), held the day before but no one else had seen it until we in Auckland, NZ. The support from the BirdLife did, we met her again later at the conference and it South East SA branch is much appreciated. was Inke Veltheim (the Brolga researcher). The conference is held every two years and is The conference was a great three days of fantastic hosted by BirdLife Australia and the Ornithological talks on a wide variety of topics, with a good mix of Society of New Zealand. more experienced researchers and students. Getting to hear talks about birds that we had only I had allowed for four days of birding before the seen in the previous few days was great. My talk conference so we got to visit some great places about the restoration of Pick Swamp and our bird around Auckland, Tawharanhui Regional Reserve monitoring was the very last talk for the was the pick of them, it is about an hour north of conference, some of the comments was that it was Auckland and is located on a peninsula, a predator great to finish on such a positive story, and heaps proof fence stretches across the entrance to keep of questions from Australians hoping to visit the predators off the peninsula. As soon as we pulled up site. at the car park we were astounded with the number of birds calling, something we found noticeably The organised field trip on one of the middle days absent at previous spots. The Ranger at the park of the conference were a real success, great guiding told us the best trails to take and we saw stunners and hosting by the Auckland birdos, we took the like Kaka, Yellowhammer, had great views of male option to visit Tiritiri Matangi Island which is about California Quail, and was tipped off to a reliable spot an hour by ferry, baiting and trapping has removed for Brown Teal. This is a must see location for all the introduced predators from the island and anyone visiting Auckland!!! Kaka was definitely one once again birds were numerous, highlights were of my birding highlights for the whole trip. Kakariki, Stitchbird, and Kokako. The pelagic trip (we didn’t do) managed to see two NZ Storm-Petrels, if you don’t know the story it’s an amazing one, thought to be extinct, a bird was photographed that no one could identify until a museum curator thought it resembled this species, more work was done, photos taken, birds caught and measured and eventually a breeding site was found. The talk is that the next AOC could be held in Adelaide in 2015, if it is and you have the chance I highly recommend you take the opportunity to attend, there are so many really interesting research stories that get presented and a great bunch of people to spend a few days with. Bob Green Miranda Shorebird Centre was another great spot, By Bob Green two hides overlook a high tide roost, the thing I found strange in NZ was the number of larger waders, small waders were a rarity to see. At Miranda there was a huge number of birds on offer, we didn’t bother counting as others were already doing that but the totals of the main species were 3500 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1500 Red Knot and 700 Oystercatchers of two species. There was a single Black-tailed Godwit mixed in which we found easy to pick as we noticed it to be the only godwit in full breeding plumage. Other birds we found were April 2014 2 Birds South East RAINBOW REPORT therefore surprising that birds habitually live in flocks, such as Babblers and Choughs seem to have maintained their numbers better than species that Last year, from my point of view, was in many ways are solitary or just pairs. The migrants have also a forgettable one, with all the reasons being on the dropped off. Tree Martins have left early. Cockatiels health front. For seven months I was plagued by have not arrived at all and I have seen only one debilitating angina attacks, some of which were Budgie this summer. quite hard to control and my mobility has slipped backwards, getting old is a deeply flawed system. But looking at the habitat changes brought about On the plus side the angina attacks stopped as by climate change in the last 20 years, the crash of suddenly as they started back in September and Bill bird populations is not surprising. Overall rainfall and I did get away, apart from coming back from has dropped with most years well below the long Queensland in January and a bit of local birding that term average, but possibly more important has was it for the year. been the trend to more light showers and much fewer events of more than an inch. As a result most However, despite the health issues, I finished 2013 of the older Red Gums (>300years) in the lower with 308 birds on the year list and a bonus of two reaches of the Wimmera River and around the lakes ticks as well, Eungella Honeyeater and Rufous are now dead, taking away an awful lot of canopy Scrub-bird, bringing my Oz list to 706. Getting over and much of the shrubby understorey of the Black 300 birds in a year is not all that easy unless you Box woodland is also dead, reducing the Black Box live at Julatten or one of the other very bird rich to a much simpler ecosystem of grassy woodland. spots in Australia. It is probably the last time I'll be In other words, the carrying capacity of the habitats able to do over 300 in a year. has gone down through the cellar floor and without My Australian list is for the biological entity of an unlikely long term turnaround of the rainfall Australia and doesn't include Norfolk and Lord Howe pattern, it will stay there. In south-eastern which are more akin to New Zealand biologically or Australia there are no benefits to climate change for Christmas and Cocos Keeling which are both way the bird watcher. west of Wallace's Line and biologically in Asia. The By John Berggy, Rainbow, 6 February 2014 list follows Christidis and Boles for the most part, but I accept SOSSA's taxonomy for the seabirds and BIRD RESPONSE TO HOT WEATHER some of the allopatric splits that Schodde and Mason propose, including Silver-backed Butcherbird Monday 13th January the temperature reached and Nullarbor Quailthrush which don't conform to 35d. It was the beginning of that stinker of a week. Bergmans, Allen's and Cloger's rules. While the Bernice and I went down to the Carpenter Rocks latter doesn't crack a mention in The Action Plan Block for a BBQ tea and to check on the bird pool. 2000, it is now hard to find and appears to be declining, like far too many of our birds. It was dry and dirty.. This was not surprising as we had not been down for about a week. The Pool When I came here in 2005, the bird watching was leaks a bit, but the Grey Roos, The Swamp very good, with summer lists in the 40's and winter Wallabies and, I suspect, the Wombats drink at it at lists in the 30's. Now there are not only far fewer times, And I might say deface it ? birds, but some species I can no longer find. It is more than two years since I've seen a Chestnut- However I cleaned it out and ran water from the backed Quailthrush; three years since a Little tank into it.